Mt Fuji - Japan
Prolog - Why I climbed Mt Fuji
"See this X-Ray picture here ...
here are your knees ...
you have arthritis !!!"
so gloated the doctor triumphantly
as if he had found some hidden treasure.
This was last year in mid 2007
when I found my knees were not good.
They hurt if I walked on stairs with some weight
in a backpack.
And why was I walking the stairs with a backpack ?
Well, I had been training for
the big Aconcagua climb planned for Jan 2008
by walking the staircases of a multi-story carpark
in the middle of the night
when the carpark was empty.
The doctor's diagnosis was a bitter disappointment.
Reluctantly, I cancelled the trip to Aconcagua.
Later on, a pharmacist friend suggested
glucosamine and fish oil tablets may help the joints.
After taking them for a while,
I found the tablets worked wonders
and the knees didn't hurt anymore.
(It is probably a placebo effect ...
but it is good enough for me 😊)
Although now, I could only climb the staircases
one step at a time.
Taking 2 staircase steps in one go would still hurt.
But one step at a time should be good enough
for Aconcagua ... So I theorized.
To prove it, I need to find a decent sized mountain
for testing ...
Hence Mt Fuji !!!
Fuji in summer
Fuji is Japan's highest mountain, 3776 meters.
In July, the month I climbed it,
it was quite warm at the top,
a comfortable 5 degrees Celsius.
Having climbed Africa's Kilimajaro,
Fuji in summer turned out to be a disappointment.
Well,
- Scenery was no where as grand as Kilimanjaro.
- Its crater was tiny by comparison.
- The landscape near the top was brown dirt.
- No white ice to jazz up the scenes.
No wonder there is this Japanese saying:
You are wise to climb Fuji once,
a fool to climb it twice !
Hey, you really ought to see the Kilimanjaro crater.
It is HUGE !!!
It would take hours of walking on the crater rim
to circumnavigate it.
Whereas 30 minutes is more than enough
to walk around the Fuji crater.
Our group
Although Fuji was not an exciting mountain
to climb, I did have the good fortune
to meet 6 lovely ladies.
As a matter of fact,
besides me and the mountain guide,
all the other 6 were female !!!
- 4 from USA
- 2 from Australia ... a mother & her daughter
I had no idea why they wanted to climb Fuji.
When in Japan, why didn't they go
and roam around the Ginza shopping district ?
Far more exciting there 😊
About the climb
It was not an easy stroll ... uphill all the way.
But in another sense, it was a comfortable walk ...
because the track was lined with shops
selling snacks and drinks.
If you were willing to pay 500 Yen
for a 250 ml bottle of water,
you didn't even need to carry any water.
And unlike toilets on other high mountains
which were stinking smelly holes in the ground,
the toilets in Fuji had seats, flushable, clean
and didn't smell.
How about my knees ?
My knees held up very well for the entire trip.
No sign of discomfort.
Aconcagua, I am coming !!!
Some pictures
Trailhead, Subashiriguchi 5th Station
1) Subashiriguchi 5th Station.
- Starting point of the Fuji climb
2) Group photo.
- Our guide Brent is on the right.
- I'm in luck, aside from me,
this an all female group !!!
Branding hiking sticks
At the start of the trail,
you buy a hiking stick for 1000 Yen.
At each rest station such as the one below,
for a price of 200 Yen,
you have your stick branded with the station's mark.
3) My stick is being branded right here in this photo.
Since there are many rest stations on the trail,
and if the stick is branded at each stop,
the total cost of the marks
far exceeds the cost of stick.
The Japanese are very smart at value adding.
I won't be surprised if they bought the wood
from us Aussies for less than 10 Yen.
And now I'll be out of pocket for 3000 Yen
for the stick and all the brandings !!!
The journey up
There are several climbing trails to the summit.
And not surprisingly, there are plenty of cases
where people went down the mountain
on the wrong trail
and ended up on the wrong side of the mountain
far away from where they had parked their cars.
To minimize incidences like these, all routes are colour coded.
4) Here, red is the colour of our Subashiriguchi trail.
There are many encouraging signs,
like in this pic, throughout the trail.
Here the sign says "Do Yoer Best !"
5) Closer view of Mt Fuji.
- Unfortunately we don't have any spectacular view
of Fuji from this trail.
This is the best I can do.
As mentioned already,
the starting point of the trail is 5th Station.
The summit is called the 10th Station.
And you guessed it ...
there are 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th Stations in between
where you can buy snacks, drinks and visit the toilet.
These stations must have been quite popular,
because in between them, spring up
New 6th, New 7th, New 8th, New 9th Stations.
The previous photo
where my stick was being branded
was at the New 6th Station.
6) Here in this photo, it is the Main 6th Station.
- I guess "Main" is an euphemism for "Old".
7) Brent, our guide leading the fearless Amazons.
8) On the way up, we met a couple
with their dog on the way down.
The dog was wearing socks, so cute !
But the poor dog didn't look happy.
It couldn't understand
why it had to climb up a mountain
and then climbed all the way down again.
I could hear it asking, "Why ???"
9) This view is fantastic !!!
- A perfectly cone shaped shadow of Mt Fuji
on the clouds below.
Spent the night at 8th Station
10) That night, we slept in the 8th Station
in a dormitory styled bunk bed.
- No male / female section.
- Beautiful Barbara ...
beckoning us to go to bed with her 😊
We woke at 2 am and trudged on upwards.
Mt Fuji summit
11) Rreward at the summit 😊
- Greeted by this glorious view of sunrise.
12, 13) At the summit
- Only 4 of us made it.
- 3 others were too tired to even bothered
to get out of bed.
They stayed back at the 8th Station.
A word to cyclists
One lady in our group was an avid cyclist.
She had reckoned she was fit.
Unfortunately, muscles used for cycling
are very different from the muscles
used for hiking.
Hence in the morning, her leg muscles were sore.
She didn't get out of bed
to go to the summit ðŸ˜
And on the way down the mountain,
her legs turned into jellies.
Brent, our guide, and I had to half-carry her down.
Now, she is a very lovely lady.
But to all other macho cyclists,
let this be a lesson to you
if you think you are very fit 😊
Return leg - Going down
14) View of 8th station where we spent the night.
15) A typical scree
where we slide down the mountain.
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